What does a bear eat?

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What does a bear eat?

Despite the fact that bears are traditionally attributed to predators, there is not so much meat in their diet as in other animals of this order. Mostly bearish "menu" consists of plant foods. Who of this squad is �predatory� most susceptible to meat, and does the bear's diet change depending on the time of year?

The basis of the bear "menu"

The most skilled hunter of all representatives of the bear species is the polar bear. In the Arctic, there is not much vegetation, so bears often hunt seals. All other bears prefer to eat nuts, berries, mushrooms, tubers and acorns. And, of course, they love honey very much. Also bears willingly eat various small mammals. However, if you have the opportunity to raise a sheep or a wild boar - clumsy toes are unlikely to refuse such a chance.

Mostly bears are looking for food during the day, at the same time they eat. In the cold regions in the fall, bears are actively stocking up fat before hibernation (of course, this does not apply to the polar bear).For several months, the bear falls asleep, however, on a warm day, it can wake up and leave the den to search for something to eat.

Every season has its own menu

Depending on the time of year, the diet of bears varies. Having woken up from hibernation in spring, in the spring they start to eat aspen shoots, ants, bird eggs, small animals, periodically hunt for elks.

In the middle of summer, bears begin to eat various berries, and in Siberia - pine nuts. In the southern regions they regale on acorns, chestnuts and hazel. If the year turned out to be a poor harvest and there is no favorite bear food in the forest, the beast can go to the fields planted with corn or oats. In some cases, bears attack pets.

Food - for fat accumulation

As you already understood, bears are omnivorous mammals. And the most important thing for them is to get a large amount of food, which then turns into fat, which is necessary for bear wintering.

Interesting numbers: to accumulate fifty kilograms of fat, a bear needs to eat about seven hundred kilograms of berries or five hundred kilograms of nuts.